Abstract
IN his recent Mather Lecture to the Textile Institute on “Agriculture as a Potential Source of Raw Materials of Industry”, Sir Harold Hartley described the present-day uses of many agricultural products for industrial purposes, and indicated some possibilities of further expansion. His method of approach was that of the short-term extrapolator rather than that of the Utopian dreamer, who, although a more successful prophet as a rule, is apt to disregard the mundane but essential element of cost. Sir Harold left the sphere of social economics severely alone, but he emphasized that development of agricultural industries would promote closer co-operation and better understanding between farm and factory. Only about 12 per cent, by value, of the world's j agricultural production is now used for industrial f purposes, but the proportion is raised to one third if forest products be included. In spite of the triumphs of the chemist, first in revealing the structure of many organic molecules, and then in synthesizing many natural products, or in processing them, the factory cannot compete with Nature in the cheap production of complex organic compounds; for supplies of cellulose, the key substance of fibrous structures, we must always rely on the plant. The future lies not in competition between Nature and the chemist, but in their closer association to produce the materials needed by man. Such a development of the use of agricultural products will help to con serve our supplies of coal and oil, for whereas these represent wasting capital assets, plant products, ever renewable by solar radiation, represent revenue without debit to capital.
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Agriculture and Industry. Nature 139, 1046–1047 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/1391046b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1391046b0